Chapter 19
When I was almost twenty, I suffered what they called a “catastrophic dental incident.” In layman’s terms, I fell headfirst down the concrete stairs that led from one level of our terrace to another.
I landed on my chin, my top teeth crashed into the bottom ones, and the result was like someone had taken a baseball bat to a china cabinet.
Even now, decades later, I’m still constantly at the dentist. Root canals, veneers, bridges, crowns, implants—I’ve had them all.
I’ve been through five dentists in as many years, dozens in my lifetime, but no matter who’s doing the drilling, it always hurts like hell, even with a boatload of Novocaine.
What really makes me crazy, though, worse than the pain, is the waiting: I wait to get called in to the chair, I wait while they get all their instruments of torture ready, I wait while they take X-rays and harden their tooth-making materials with little UV lamps, and I wait while the dentist talks to the hygienist about the weather and football and—let me tell you—it’s enough to drive someone completely nuts.
It does give me that chance to keep up with my reading, however.
And today, another tasty tidbit: who would have thought, there in the pages of Cleveland Social, rivaling his wife for the media spotlight, would be Malcolm Evans, assistant professor of English at the Cleveland Institute of Technology?
It seems Professor Evans, who lives in Bratenahl—gasp!
—with his young family, has been playing naughty with the students—inappropriate gatherings, rumors of impropriety.
Wine, marijuana, really juicy stuff. Now he’s gone and gotten himself suspended, pending an investigation.
Suspended without pay, is what it said, and I didn’t think they could do something like this in America. I thought “innocent until proven guilty” and all that.
Not that I’m complaining.